All you want to know about breeding guppies.

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1. Environment

Aroflim: I kept guppies in cool and quiet place. In Singapore, I was not worry about guppies catching cold. They were more likely to fall sick when tank water temperature rised from the long period of exposure to afternoon sun. But I found that at cool place and lack of light, ph would go down. Ideal location for me was cool with some morning sunlight.

2. Water care

Lawrence: My water condition is very simple. 3 teaspoonful of aquarium salt and 1 capfull of Nutrafin water conditioner for 45L of water. Aged it with air pump for min of 5 days. For filtration, i used sponge and bottom filter. I always maintained the water in tip top conditioned i.e about 4 times daily siphoning out of waste and siphoning out of unfinshed food before light off. As you know, waste and left over food will bring up ammonia level thus causing water poisoning. Just need to top up with conditioned aged water by the end of week. 100% WC by the 3rd week. Note: Guppy can be with/without salt.

It's up to individual preferrence.

Angelo: I have many different setup.
With air pump and sponge:
- Daily 100% water change. No finage issue at all. Fishes very active.
- Daily ~20 to 50% water change. Occasionally finage issue.
Without air pump with sponge.
- Daily 100% water change. No finage issue at all. Fishes not as active.
- Daily ~20 to 50% water change. Encounter finage issue almost everyday.

Angelo: Direct introduce tap water into tank and then add conditioner...both will damaged the fish grill and finage.

Nev: I got 2 different setup.
Indoor -Doing 50% daily. Like very easily prone to finage problem.
Outdoor - No WC at all. heavily planted. Very active.

Angelo: In Singapore, tap water is the safest for guppies. Chlorine, chloramines and ammonia are added. The purpose of adding ammonia is to make the chloramines more stable.
Chlorine will evaporate when water is allowed to sit overnight. This process can be speed up by the use of aeration or adding anti-chlorine solution.
Chloramines can only be removed with anti-chloramines solution.
Ammonia can be removed by some of the water conditioner.

Ammonia (NH3) or ammonium (NH4) is produced from the breakdown of protein and is excreted through the gills (urine). NH3 or NH4 is also produced from decaying feces, food and, dead bodies, and decomposing plants. Ammonia is converted into nitrite (NO2) by Nitrosomonas (helpful bacteria). In turn, Nitrite is further oxidized by Nitrobacter bacteria into Nitrate (NO3). This aerobic process uses oxygen (O2).

PH is a measure of the acidity and alkalinity of water. A scale from 0 to 14, 7 is commonly refer as neutral, lower than is acidic and higher is alkaline. It is logarithmic, each number is 10 times stronger than the preceding one. Such as pH 5 is 10 times more acidic than pH 6, and is 100 times more acidic than pH 7. For guppies, a change of 0.5 pH a day is stressful. Most of the cases result in death.

For guppy tank. materials that will up the pH are, shells, dolomite, magnesium, calcium, marble and coral. Aeration will up the pH as well by expelling the carbon dioxide from the water.

In Singapore, most of the time, tap water pH is different from water in tank. It should be aged to the same pH as in the tank.

Altering of pH in guppy tank is not recommended. Usually result in serious problem. A guppy subject to rapid change in pH will result in excited, rapid swimming action, gasp, jump….and die. A stable pH is very important for guppies.

Guppies subject to low pH will result in acidosis. Easily down by disease. On the other hand, Alkalosis seldom occur to guppies subject to high pH. However, ammonia is more toxic in higher pH. Gills and fins will be damaged.

Fireblade: Water change once a week or a fortnight. change around 80% of water and full up water directly from tap. add 1 teaspoon of salt and a little anti-chlorine. All the while did not add in anti-chlorine till recently after changing water, noticed that my discus does not look right, then decided to add in anti-chlorine. Depends on the location you are in, some parts of Singapore does not require anti-chlorine but some parts does eg like Sembawang, if no anti-chlorine is added, the fishes will die in 1/2 to 1 hour time.

3. Males selection

4. Females selection

5. Pregnant female and Fry

Aroflim: I put pregnant female in round plastic tub filled with lot of floating plants and closed with a lid to prevent her from jumping out. Cut a big hole at the center of the lid for ease of feeding (she wont jump through the hole). She took about one or two days to settle down. I put the round tub next to the guppy tank so she could see other fish. Being alone was scarely I supposed. She was unlikely to jump in a round tub as she could go round.

Angelo: The duration of female keep together with male is one of the factor that determine the quantity of fry per drop. Shorter duration will have lesser fry comparing to longer duration.

6. Fry care

Itchy: (learned from Prof Lawrence, pls correct of wrong) - Not advisable to mix different broods together. Food can be daphnia and tubifex.


7. Pumping your guppy and fry

Lawrence: My ways of pumping up:
Morning - Fry & Adult : Grinded powder form dry food and normal one for fry and adult respectively. ( coz no more live food left, all finished in the night time )
Evening - fry & adult : Live boon ( daphnia ) for fry & adult. Followed by tubiworm/frozen bloodworm 2 hrs later.

Angelo: Based on the fry tiny and fast digestive system. To pump up the fry, increase the frequency of feeding not quantity per feed.
Two weeks onward, start to separate the smaller size from the rest. This way, you will be able to bring up all the fry to adult with all at almost the same size.

8. Feeding and Food nutritions

nefish: Tubi need to be chop before fed. Handling of tubi mentioned by itchy too, maybe itchy want to add on.....Change, no need to chop, had tried with few days old fries.


9. Treatments for sick guppies

Digichris : Just to share, i don add in any medication for my fish when they are sick. I will just quarrantine the sick fish in a quarrantine tank. Quarantine tank is 100% conditioned or aged water with salt added. Wont feed the fish for 3-5 days depending on its condition. Continue for couple of weeks to see if there is any recovery of the fish. I find that by using this method, some of the sick fish will recover by its own.

Lawrence: Many years back, whenever my guppy was sick, i would apply all sort of medication. However, most of them can't it. What make guppy sick? I have been thinking to myself. Must be the water conditioned, right?. That's why i always emphasis on the importance of daily mantainance of water to minimize the sickness of fish especially this red genes. Untill now, i dun use any medication to cure sick fish. Conditioned aged water is my best medication. Talk to your fish daily. Any early sign of sickness, they will tell you. Immediate 100% WC with conditioned aged water. They will be all cure, no casualty. I reiterate again., Prevention Is Always Better Than Cure.

Nana13: 100% agreed.

10. Genetics

11. Record keeping

12. Interesting Theory

Long Kang theory - Guppies live in long kang, and long kang water flows non-stop, it is like having 100% water change at all time. This supports why Angelo does 100% water change daily. (This theory was shared by Angelo).

Pregnant females kept in higher ph water will drop more male fry.
Aroflim: I tried and was convinced. I kept ph in the range of 7.5 to 8. I used coral chip or exposed the tank/tub to partial sunlight to raise ph.